Page 10 of Burn in Ruin
For some reason, that made it even harder to lift my whip.
But I did.
And then I let it fall, sending a golden streak down his broken body.
He screamed. The sound of true pain twisted my heart.
Because my whip didn’t just elicit agony of the flesh. It drew out sin—and a demon like Kaito had plenty of that to extract.
This tactic usually worked on Fallen Angels and helped them grow closer to their original selves. A Fallen Angel without sin was simply an angel at the end of it all.
A demon without sin, though, was nothing at all.
This could kill him.
Or… it could force him to fight back.
“Give me what I want!” I shouted.
I didn’t want to know his secret of how he resisted Calamity. I already had an idea.
He hadn’t rejected Calamity.
Calamity had rejected him… because he couldn’t be controlled if his demon was set free.
In some ways, I suspected he was even more powerful than Lucifer or Cole. I didn’t yet know why, but that was the only explanation how he’d resisted Calamity when the rest of the mate-circle had not.
My brother and myself had insanity on our side, leaving a disjointed mind that Calamity couldn’t get a handle on.
What I wanted from Kaito was to show what made him special.
To embrace who he truly was and get his head out of his fucking ass.
“And what is it that you want?” he growled, his voice changing to something more demonic. Each word grated together like stones, sending a thrill up my spine.
He stood to his feet, his body twisting at wrong angles as his bones broke from the damage I’d caused him.
The tools I’d used lay strewn about the chamber.
Hammers.
Daggers.
Knives.
Ropes.
Chains.
It was a miracle that he was still in one piece, but my intent had been to rip the weak mortal form from him and force his demon out.
It seemed to finally be working.
“You know what I want,” I said, flicking my wrist so that my whip snapped with warning.
His eyes blazed with red, the rim of silver growing larger as his tongue snaked out to lick the air.
Yes… that’s it.
